What is the definition of terrorism?

In the aftermath of events at the Westgate shopping Mall in Nairobi Kenya there is an awful lot of soul searching and reflection as to how this could have happened, who knew what as well as what happens now.

Further questions are to do with what impact if any these attacks will have on Somalis who call Kenya home and community cohesion broadly.

I too, found myself in a couple of exchanges on Twitter with respect to the definition of terrorism. The first of those exchanges isn’t worth repeating here and the second was with James Schneider Editor in Chief at Think Africa Press. I stumbled across one his tweets that had been Retweeted by @RosebellK and it said

Prior to the Nairobi attacks, I had been reading around the issue of globalisation and terrorism as well as the role of the diaspora in groups such as the Lords Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony and Al Shabab.

My interest in the matter is two fold, firstly this is a topic I didn’t get to explore properly whilst at university and I made a mental note to revisit it once I was out.

Secondly my fellow bloggers and I are currently in collaboration with the think tank ECPDM on the Africa- EU relationship. As I considered what my next contribution should be the issue of the Development – Security nexus seemed like a good topic to explore.

The obvious place to start was Professor Haynes book on globalisation and world politics, in particular I was reading a chapter that covers political violence and terrorism

Haynes argues that both Political violence and terrorism can be carried out by the state, individuals and or social groups against other groups.

The objectives for each of these vary and can be summarised as follows

The State: gaining absolute power over citizens

Individuals and groups: to influence and ultimately alter government policy

Haynes cautions that “political violence is not something that only fanatics undertake’ and defines political violence as a tactical response to what is perceived as unacceptable political circumstances that cannot be otherwise addressed” and thatit includes violent demonstrations, looting, riots, sabotage, terrorism etc

On the issue of terrorism itself, Professor Haynes says because terrorism is subjective and controversial it is not easy to differentiate between the tactics and goals of terrorists ( violence loving fanatics) and freedom fighters (romantic idealists).

For that reason, he points us to what he calls a neutral explanation by Keohane, Informal violence is violence committed by non state actors who capitalise on secrecy and surprise to inflict great harm and with small material capabilities and can be contrasted with state sponsored or directed “formal violence”

A specific differentiation between political violence and terrorism according to Haynes is that whilst terrorism is a form of political violence not all forms of political violence qualify as terrorism and that the difference lies in techniques, targets and goals which must embody political skill. Some examples might include the activities of animal activists and anti abortionists.

With this in mind, I would like to return to my conversation with James and see if I can un pick some of the points he made.

James says my definition of terrorism is dangerous as it gives a lot of power to states to crack down on protestors. I am not sure how James could have possibly reached this conclusion.

What these protests had in common were citizen grievances and their perception of what government attitude to those grievances.

Whilst both the Occupy London and Walk 2 Work were not violent protests the states in question responded differently and we learn from Haynes that this is down to the degree to which normative values have developed in a given polity, which in tun impacts people’s ability to influence political outcomes.

If we contrast the London Riots with the recent incident at Westgate we can see some obvious differences. In the London Riots there was political violence in the form of looting, property distraction etc, but we can’t argue convincingly that there was a plan nor a direction for this violence nor political skill for that matter.

The Westgate incident on the other hand appears to have been planned and the grievance here was that the Kenyan government had refused to pull out of Somalia as requested by Al Shabaab a militia group operating out of East Africa.

You will recall that the same group carried out similar attacks in Kampala Uganda when the Ugandan government failed to give in to their demands for the Ugandan government to pull out of Somalia

Al Shabaab’s aim here as far as I can tell is to gain concessions from the African Union forces that have stabilised Somalia by driving it out of key areas they occupied and as such reducing its income and influence as well as its chances of governing Somalia according to a strict religious regime.

So there you have it folk that is the source of my definition and the thinking behind it